A relative's funeral

One of Adrick's earliest memories was attending the funeral of his grandfather, old Baron Adrick of Morand, fourth of that name. He was marching behind Grandfather's coffin, his hand clutched in his father's. The coffin was born on a wagon drawn by four matched black horses who must have been griffin-steady, for beside the wagon paced Wingshadow, Grandfather's griffin. Wingshadow was huge and dark for a Golden Griffin; the feathers of his neck and wings had darkened to a deep bronze, and he was almost too big to fly combat maneuvers.
The procession entered the Baronial cemetary, and passed by rows of family tombs, and the stone griffins that guarded them. At the end of the last row was Grandfather's gravesite. The coffin was lowered into the tomb. One by one Old Adrick's comrades, relatives, and retainers filed by, depositing burial gifts atop the coffin as Wingshadow crouched at the head of the tomb, watching. Young Adrick left a knife with a gold wire-wrapped hilt, in a tooled leather scabbard. The knife had never been his; his father had given it to him the day before to leave as tribute. Adrick felt a twinge of jealousy as he dropped the knife -- he would have liked to keep it -- and he had seen plenty of weapons already dropped on the coffin. As he turned from the tomb, he saw Wingshadow's great yellow eyes watching him -- could the griffin have somehow read that unworthy thought? Evidentally not - he raised no protest as Adrick walked back to where his Father stood. Finally, the last gift had been deposited. Then Wingshadow underwent a terrifying change: his face and beak suddenly turned white; the whiteness moved like a flush down his neck and shoulders and back along the muscular leonine body, and all the way down his tail, all the way to the tufted tip. Only the great yellow eyes retained the color of life. For a moment, the eyes flickered around horizontally, as if recording the scene, then they glazed over to a blank, white stare, and Baron Adrick's tomb was guarded by a stone griffin. Young Adrick had watched dry-eyed throughout the funeral; his grandfather had never been close to him, but had been an awsome presence in the background of his life -- someone whom he had to please but would never be able to -- sort of like God. The tears which started from his eyes now were more the result of fear than grief. "Is he dead, Father?"
"Of course . He's been dead for three days."
"No, I mean Wingshadow."
"No, Adrick. But Wingshadow is too old to take a new Rider, so he will do what all griffins eventually do -- he will become a guardian, and guard your grandfather's tomb for all eternity. There is no finer fate for a Golden Griffin, and no greater honor for a Griffinrider."